UK still doesn't do me any good. It will be interesting to see if they roll out the fire anywhere else, or if they'll wait another year for the release of the next model to introduce a third country. I have a feeling they'll bypass Canada for some time. We don't have access to their apps, music, tv, movies, cloud storage. We don't even have a Kindle store, but at least they allow us to purchase Kindle ebooks from the U.S. store.

If I was looking to upgrade today, I would definitely be looking at these over the Amazon offerings. Just not a fan of the Amazon cloud ecosystem.

Sticking point for me (and I admit to not looking at the specs yet) is does Kobo handle B&N's DRM'd epubs? I have many files for my NOOK at the moment that I don't want to lose. Or would I have to use Calibre and the various plug-ins to get those files to work? Totally doable, but I like the least hassles possible.

If I was looking to upgrade today, I would definitely be looking at these over the Amazon offerings. Just not a fan of the Amazon cloud ecosystem.

Sticking point for me (and I admit to not looking at the specs yet) is does Kobo handle B&N's DRM'd epubs? I have many files for my NOOK at the moment that I don't want to lose. Or would I have to use Calibre and the various plug-ins to get those files to work? Totally doable, but I like the least hassles possible.

Although Kobo could have added compatibility on the new units, I haven't heard. I wonder if the Kobo rep who posts here could answer that question?

It's still a signature Kobo quilt pattern, but we have taken a slightly different approach to it with the new Kobo family of devices.

Is it etched in the plastic? Is it removable? I'm sorry to be stuck on this point, but aesthetics are important to me. I know it could be hidden by a case, but the fact I know it's there would be hard to overcome.